The Simpkins Plot Part 34

"Is it him they call Sir Gilbert Hawkesby?"

"It is," said Meldon, "that very man. Did you see him?"

"I did. It was half past ten o'clock, or maybe a little later, and the young lady was just after coming out with a terrible big lot of papers along with her. She sat herself down there in the little bed where you were lying this minute, and 'Good morning to you, Callaghan,' she says when she saw me."

"What were you doing there?" said Meldon.

"I was looking at her. Wasn't that what you told me to do? I was watching out the same as I've been doing this last week, the way Simpkins wouldn't come on her unawares, and me maybe somewhere else and not seeing him."

"All right," said Meldon. "I haven't the least doubt that's exactly what you were doing. I put the wrong question to you. What I ought to have asked you was this: What did Miss King think you were doing? What were you pretending to do?"

"I was making as if I was scuffling the walk with a hoe, and the Lord knows it wants scuffling, for the way the weeds grow on it is what you'd hardly believe."

"Well, and after she said good morning to you what happened?"

"There wasn't anything happened then," said Callaghan, "unless it would be some talk there was between us about the weather, me saying it was seasonable for the time of year, and--"

"You needn't go into details about the weather," said Meldon. "I suppose, sooner or later, something else happened?"

"There did then."

"And what was it?"

"There came a car up along the avenue with a gentleman on it, and it was Patsy Flaherty that was driving it; and him lacing the old mare with the whip the same as if the gentleman might be in a hurry."

"He was in a hurry," said Meldon. "As a matter of fact, he hadn't had a bite to eat since the middle of the day yesterday, and not much then.

Any man would be in a hurry if he was as hungry as that judge."

"That may be. Any way, whatever the reason of it was, he had Patsy Flaherty leathering the mare like the devil. Then, as soon as ever Miss King set eyes on him, she was up out of the little bed where she was, and the papers threw down on the ground, and her running as fast as ever she could leg it across the gra.s.s."

"Poor thing!" said Meldon. "It must have been a shock to her to catch sight of him like that. Where did she run to?"

"To meet him, of course," said Callaghan.

"To meet him! Be careful what you're saying now, Callaghan. It's more likely she ran the other way."

"Amn't I telling you it was to meet him? And, what's more, you'd say by the way she was running that she was thinking it a long time till she got to him."

"You're mistaken about that," said Meldon. "Unless she completely lost her head through sheer nervousness; it must have been away from him she ran."

"It was not, but to him. And then as soon as ever he seen her coming he put out his hand, and gripped a hold of Patsy Flaherty by the arm, and 'Stop, ye divil,' says he. 'Haven't ye had enough of battering that old screw for one day?' says he, 'and don't you see the young lady that's coming across the lawn there and her lepping like a two-year-old, so as the sight of her would make you supple and you crippled with the rheumatics?'"

"I know now," said Meldon, "that you're telling me a pack of lies from start to finish. There's not a judge in the world would say the words you're putting into that one's mouth. It isn't the way judges talk, nor the least like it. You oughtn't to try and invent things, Callaghan. You can't do it. You haven't got any faculty for dramatic probability in characterisation. That story of yours wouldn't go down with Major Kent, and what's the good of your offering it to me? You may not know it, Callaghan, but I'm something of an expert in textual criticism. I can separate up the Book of Genesis into its component doc.u.ments as well as any man living, and I'm quite capable of telling by internal evidence, that is to say by considerations of style and matter, whether any particular verse is written by the same man that wrote the verse before. Now in both respects, matter and style, I recognise in your story the strongest possible evidence of fabrication.

Any literary critic who knew his business would agree with me. In the first place, Miss King wouldn't have run to meet that judge. She'd have run away from him if she ran at all."

"It was to him she did run," said Callaghan, "and what's more--"

"In the second place," said Meldon, "the judge wouldn't have spoken that way to Patsy Flaherty. If he'd wanted to have the car stopped he'd have said, 'Pull up for a minute, my good man,' or words to that effect."

"Well," said Callaghan, "it might have been that he said. How was I to hear what pa.s.sed between them when I was half ways across the lawn at the time scuffling the path with my hoe?"

"And if you couldn't hear," said Meldon, "what on earth do you mean by pretending to repeat to me the exact words the judge used?"

"I told you the best I could. If them wasn't the words he said he looked mighty like as if they were. Any way Patsy Flaherty gave over lambasting the old mare, and she stood still, the way you'd think she was glad of the rest. Then the gentleman took a lep down off the car, and away with him to meet the lady."

"Well?"

"She was mighty glad to see him," said Callaghan, "for she kissed him twice."

"Nonsense," said Meldon, "she couldn't possibly have kissed him. And, listen to me now, Callaghan. You set up to be mighty particular about moral conduct, and the day I first talked to you about Miss King you said a lot about disliking any kind of impropriety. But you don't hesitate to tell me a grossly scandalous story about a lady who never did you any harm. I don't think you ought to do it."

"There was no impropriety of conduct about it."

"There was. How can you possibly say there wasn't? What could be more improper, judged by any conceivable standard of conduct, than for a young lady to go rushing and tearing across a lawn--and I declare I don't like to repeat the thing you said."

"There was no impropriety of conduct," said Callaghan, "because the gentleman was her uncle."

"Do you mean to tell me," said Meldon, "that Sir Gilbert Hawkesby is Miss King's uncle?"

"He is. I might have guessed it when I saw her kissing him. And I partly did guess there must be something of the sort in it; for I have a respect for Miss King, and I know well that she's not the sort that would do the like of that without the gentleman would be a near friend of her own. But the way I'd make sure I went and asked the young lady within in the kitchen."

"Do you mean the cook?"

"I do," said Callaghan. "It might have been an hour after or maybe more when I was taking in a dish of peas for the dinner. 'Miss Hodge,'

says I, speaking respectful--for the girls that does be in it thinks a lot of themselves on account of their coming over here all the way from London--'Miss Hodge,' says I, 'that's a mighty fine gentleman that's come to see the mistress to-day.' 'The devil a much credit it is to you to find that out,' says she, 'for--'"

"She didn't," said Meldon. "n.o.body of the name of Hodge who came from London would or could say 'the devil a much credit' under any circ.u.mstances."

"It's what she meant," said Callaghan, "and what's more, she told me about his being a high-up gentleman, and a judge, no less. 'Do you tell me that now?' says I. 'I'm glad of it, for, if you believe me, it's the first time ever I set eyes on one of them.' 'You'll see plenty of him,' says she, 'for he'll be stopping here along with Miss King till he's done fishing.' 'Will he then? And what could he be doing that for?' 'It's on account of the way them murdering villains down in the hotel--'"

"I wish," said Meldon, "that you wouldn't try to repeat the cook's exact words. You're getting them wrong every time and making it more and more difficult for me to believe your story."

"It's the truth I'm telling you whether or no," said Callaghan, "and what she said was that he was coming up here to stay on account of the way they had him poisoned down in the hotel, which is what I was sorry to hear her say, for Sabina Gallagher's a friend of my own, her sister being married to my wife's cousin, and I wouldn't like to hear of the girl getting a bad name. Any way, 'it's that way it is,' said Miss Hodge, 'and where would he come to if it wasn't--?'"

"You're at it again," said Meldon. "Why can't you tell what you have to tell without spoiling what might be a good story by insisting on making the cook talk in that unnatural way?"

"What she said was," said Callaghan, "that it was no more than right and proper that he'd come to the house of his own niece."

"You're absolutely certain she said that?"

"I am; for it wasn't once nor twice she said it, but more; like as if she was proud of being along with a lady that was niece to a judge."

"If the facts are as you state them," said Meldon, "a good many things become clear to me, and the general situation is by no means so desperate as I was inclined to think."

"Would you say now, your reverence," said Callaghan, "that it's true what she was after telling me about Sabina doing the best she could to poison the judge with paraffin oil?"

"There's a foundation of truth in the statement," said Meldon, "but it has been very much exaggerated."